The Forgotten Kunoichi
by imawalrus
Summary: Tenten may not be as good as the other girls, and she may be forgotten in light of them, but she's a kunoichi, and she is strong. Written because Tenten is really underdeveloped compared to the rest.
1. Chapter 1

Tenten and being the most easily forgotten about girl

-

_Least Important_

All the other girls were special in some way. Team seven had Sakura, and she was Godaime-sama's pupil and had learned the Hokage's super-strength and incredible healing.

Team eight had a Hyuuga, enough said. Team ten had Ino, and she had her family jutsu, the ability to enter minds. They were unique and strong and _useful_. And for a while she had thought her own skills with weapons were useful too, but her mind was changed during the chuunin exams. She had been beaten humiliatingly easy by Temari of Sunagakure.

Her defeats, her weaknesses, they pushed her so much more.


	2. Chapter 2

Tenten as a kunoichi

-

_A Sharp Weapon_

Her parents had never dissuaded her from entering the Academy, or having hopes of being a ninja, but at the same time they didn't understand why it meant so much to her.

Growing up she had been the shortest girl in their class, boys had found it easy to tease and pick on her. Things didn't get any better in the Academy, and perhaps that's why her parents were so confused by her motivation.

She didn't have any special skills, she wasn't smart, her family didn't have a bloodline, but Tenten found out that she was very good with weapons.


	3. Chapter 3

More Tenten! Finally!

I couldn't help it… Saki-chan makes an appearance. I didn't mean to write her in, it's just when I was writing this story it made me think of Saki-chan, especially crazytoffee's version from Tangled Up in Lace (go read it!). That wasn't what I had intended, but since just writing it made me think of that so much, I added Saki-chan in for fun. Saki-chan is, for those who don't know, basically Sasuke in drag, gothic Lolita drag to be precise, created by the wonderfully talented Asuka Kureru (beware, her Saki-chan stories are most definitely NC-17, except one). He's so effed up.

I'm so close to the story being 1,000 words here! But… I didn't feel like trying to push it. Truthfully I was over 1,000 but I ended up cutting out a part I thought was boring and unnecessary.

-

_Doll's Dream_

Running errands was not something that Tenten particularly minded doing, unlike most of the teens her age; it gave her an excuse to finally leave the section of town her family lived in, namely the part largely inhabited by the shinobi, and walk around the mainly civilian neighborhood. The civilian section could almost be another town entirely for all the differences between the two parts. In Tenten's part the houses were more apartments or long rows of houses that were attached to each other, all colored a dull tan with dark adornments. All shops sold equipment, even the grocery stores, that could be customized to the products they sold. However in the civilian section the houses were large and comfy, painted prettily in an assortment of colors from yellow houses with green shutters to blue houses with fuscia shutters. The stores were all specialty stores that sold only their products and nothing extra. Even the clothing stores were all different from one another. Shinobi didn't need many outfits, but these stores each specialized in their own way, whether for formal days, for cold days, for warm days, for casual days, for any day one could imagine. When Tenten saved up a decent amount of money she always liked to go to those stores and buy an expensive outfit that made her feel feminine and pretty. She would then wear it the next time she had to run an errand on the civilian side of town.

Sometimes she wondered if her own teammates would recognize her as she was when she went out. Makeup was not something she wore to train or on missions, but she applied it carefully when she ran errands. Dresses and skirts were impractical for her life as a kunoichi, but they were her staple outfits when she was a civilian. Even the ever present hitai-ate that she had been so proud to finally receive was removed and placed into a carefully chosen handbag. Her hair was released from its tight buns, letting her scalp relax, and hung gently around her face and down to her shoulders. Her hair was just a long as Neji's, but she felt foolish leaving it down, as if it would make her seem vain and not at all like a strong kunoichi. Standards were different between the men and the women she supposed, even if there was supposedly no gender on the battlefield.

The girl at the clothes store thought Tenten had a handsome boyfriend with dark black hair and bright green eyes, and he was a handsome shinobi who often left for long missions and when he came back all she did was spend time with him. Whenever Tenten couldn't make it to visit her friend at the shop she said her boyfriend returning home was the reason for her absence. She created a carefully constructed dream where she had both lives that she had always wanted. The life that all girls wanted, where she owned pretty things and gossiped about silly things, and then the life that she had always worked for, where she proved her strength each day and showed the men that she was just as good as every one of them.

Tenten had always liked to prove herself as being worthy.

That was when she had first seen him, on a trip to the civilian neighborhood. Tenten had naturally known that Uchiha Sasuke was back in town after he ran away, but she hadn't actually seen him around, probably because he was avoiding them, which was just what they all probably wanted anyway. She knew immediately that it was Sasuke, and perhaps he knew immediately that it was Tenten because Saki-chan didn't mind when Tenten slipped into the seat opposite the porcelain doll-looking boy/girl who had serious problems in most people's opinions (or perhaps it was just written off as another shinobi quirk).

"Saki-chan, I don't think we've ever been introduced. I'm Tenten," she introduced holding her hand over the tiny table covered by a lacy cloth. The tea shop was very cute with bows and ruffles and other girls dressed up in pretty flowered dresses sitting around chatting with patterned china tea cups held delicately in their gloved hands. Saki-chan hesitantly shook Tenten's hand. "Do you come here often?"

"I spend a lot of time on this side of town. They have the nicest tea shops. This one is my favorite," Saki-chan offered with a tiny smile.

Tenten knew just what that meant. It meant that Sasuke was never around because he spent so much time dressed up as a girl on the side of town where the people didn't know who Saki-chan really was. Sasuke was leading more of a double life than even Tenten. "This is my first time in a tea shop here. I usually come to shop. It's… a nice change of scene." Saki-chan smiled sweetly but Tenten saw the understanding in Sasuke's eyes. Everyone needed to get away from the shinobi life once in a while. "Well," she said standing up, "I'll let you finish your tea in peace, but… perhaps we could do this again sometime?"

"Of course," Saki-chan nodded. "I'll see you around I'm sure, and we can meet here when our schedules permit it."

The only schedule they needed to think about was Tenten's and when she didn't have a mission.

Back in her bedroom Tenten carefully wiped away all traced of her dolled up self until she was satisfied not even a hit of color was left upon her lips. Her hair was tied swiftly up in buns and her pretty clothing was folded away as she put back on her regular clothing. Sometimes she tried so hard to be the perfect kunoichi (no, more than a kunoichi, the perfect shinobi of Konohagakure) that she needed anything to remind her that she was still female, that she was still beautiful and something to be cherished and loved and admired.

-

(A/N) The next part will show Tenten being strong and tough and stuff… Promise…


	4. Chapter 4

It's not very long, I know. But this came to me while I was driving home tonight and I just had to write it when I got home. It probably isn't as good as it was when I first thought it up in the car, but that's what I get for letting inspiration strike with no laptop around.

-

_That Damn Question_

It was a simple and harmless question really, it was just the context of when it was asked that got Tenten so angry and offended. And she was very close to stabbing the next person who asked her it, even as harmless as it supposedly was.

"Are you the medic-nin?" A hand landed on her shoulder and she spun around to face the man who had asked her.

"No," she snapped out. "I just arrived at this camp with four other shinobi, _male_ shinobi. How come I'm the first one you go to asking that question? Why don't you use your brain and ask our captain who the medic-nin is!"

A small voice made a coughing noise. "I'm the medic-nin, sir." The speaker was a young man about Tenten's height, but a few years her senior. "Point me in the direction of who needs the most healing."

Tenten turned away from the man in a huff, there was no way she was going to ask that man any questions she might have. That stupid question. Striding further in to the camp Tenten looked for the familiar face she knew was there with the group, but only found older, strange men. She began to head towards a small knot deep in conversation when a man intercepted her, laying his hand on her shoulder.

"Nurse, I think I need a physical," the man requested with a cocky grin.

_That_ was the breaking point. Tenten slid out a kunai and slammed the butt of it into the man's jaw before grabbing the hand on her and snapping his pointer finger. "Now you _really_ need a medic-nin for that nasty break. He's over there," she jerked the kunai in the direction the medic had disappeared. The man whimpered, gingerly holding his hand, and nodded before quickly heading where she had directed him.

The shinobi were all staring at her. "Anyone else want to presume I'm a medic simply because I'm female?" she asked in a dangerous tone. No answer. "Now, will someone tell me where Hyuuga Neji is? He sent for me, so I think he'd like to know that I've arrived."

"I was already sent for. Something about a crazy female assaulting Toshio and breaking his hand," Neji said with a frown as he entered the clearing.

"Honestly, it was only one finger," Tenten said with a smile.

"All right boys, the weapons specialist is here!" Neji called out to the shinobi. Was she really the only female here? "She's going to teach you as many tricks as she can within the next week, as well as setting traps with weapons, so that you'll be multiple times better with weapons before we attack Otogakure. It's time you stopped relying so much on your chakra when it can be taken away from you."

Neji smiled at Tenten. "They're all yours, work them to the bone."

Tenten smiled back as she stepped forward. She was going to take out all her frustrations on these men for each time some stupid man had assumed she was the medic simply because she was a female. These men would never again take a female lightly when they were finished with her training.

And she had a whole week with them.

-

(A/N) Okay so she wasn't really kicking anyone's ass… not really, except that one guy. But it's hard for me to write fight scenes…


End file.
